BtVS: Aftermath
by Brin Londo5
Summary: My take on Season 7's final episode, Willow/Xander, Buffy/Spike


Title: Aftermath  
  
Author: Brin Londo5  
  
Email: ogreblood@hotmail.com  
  
Rating: PG or mild R, due to violence and language  
  
Summary: Xander and Willow, after the final episode, Songfic set to T.A.T.U.'s "Stars"  
  
Disclaimer: All Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series characters belong to Joss Wheadon, the song Stars belongs to T.A.T.U., and lyrics by whoever writes their songs. Archive: Whoever wants it, just please ask first.  
  
Author's Notes: This story assumes that Buffy was right when she said, "I'm standing on the edge of Hell, and it's trying to drag me down. And it will. But it'll choke on me." Author's Notes (2): And yes, I'm aware that Harmony was dusted in L.A., and Merrick isn't buried in Sunnydale, either, but it seemed to fit better. Maybe the Powers That Be lent a hand there?  
  
How did we ever go this far? You touch my hand and start the car And for the first time in my life I'm crying...  
  
Xander lifted the last of the boxes, and put it into the back of his truck. He pulled out a soot-stained handkerchief and dabbed away the tear from his good eye, then turned and pulled Willow into a fierce hug. The redheaded witch suddenly grabbed hold of his shoulders and pulled him into her embrace, holding on as if she were drowning, as her sobs wracked her body as badly as before, on the top of the bluff after Tara's death.  
  
The fight against the first had been horrific. At first, it seemed like they might have a chance, albeit a microscopic sliver of one, when they realized that the First Evil could be trapped by rendering it flesh-and- blood, then it could be killed like any other 'Big Bad'. The Bringers were in the first wave of assailants, and the Potentials that survived their ill-fated assault on Caleb's hideout took them out without too much aid from Giles, Wood, and Xander. But then the First launched its true attack, loosing its army of Turak Han uber-vampires against the two Slayers, the Scoobies, Angel's crew, and the Potentials.  
  
Gunn, Lorne, Andrew, Oz, and Kennedy were the first to die in the melee that spiraled rapidly out of control as Sunnydale began to burn, just like in the vision that the ancient shamen showed Buffy. No one except Xander and Anya noticed Willow's eyes darken at the young Slayer-in-training's death, they all had their hands full trying to rescue civilians and survive themselves. Until the First had the nerve to take on Kennedy's form and taunt Willow.  
  
Everyone, even Willow, had forgotten. They had not seen Willow haul Osiris himself, a god, into her presence, without the use of incantation or ritual. And then hurl him back into the Egyptian realm of Mu'at for his refusal to return her lover Tara to her. Even Giles had let it slip his mind that Willow was now the most powerful sorceress in the western hemisphere, if not the world. And she had just been pushed one step too far.  
  
Sunnydale had lots of graveyards. A large number of the bodies buried in those graveyards were of people slain by the monsters that the Hellmouth called to. Friends were buried in those graveyards. Friends, lovers, and loved-ones. And on that night, Willow gave out a frantic, outraged call. And on this one, last desperate night, the dead answered. Every grave not depopulated by vampiric resurrection was torn asunder from within, and the dead rose to aid their loved ones one last time.  
  
The Turak Han army had surrounded the heroes into a huddled, ragged semicircle at the corner of two buildings. Between the Potentials and the monsters, Buffy, Faith, Angel, Spike, and Connor had drawn the line. Behind them stood Ripper, Riley, Wood, Wesley, and Xander, and behind them in turn stood the mystics: Willow, Cordelia, Dawn, Anyanka the Vengeance Demon, and Fred. The First looked down at the prime uber-vamp, and simply said "Kill them all. Now."  
  
"I'm sorry, but that's my daughter you're talking about. And I'm going to watch her kick your pathetic incorporeal ass." Joyce Summers called out.  
  
Buffy nearly dropped her sword when she looked over the crowd of fiends to see her mother standing there, looking untouched by death and wearing the dress that she'd been buried in, standing alongside Jenny Calendar, her first Watcher Merrick, Willow and Xander's friend Jesse, and Riley's old pals Graham and Thompson, who'd been killed by the demon-cyborg Adam. Behind them stood Harmony, Clint, Jonathan, and a multitude of others. The Turak Han roared a challenge, and the battle of the Undead versus the truly dead began. After that, things were a blur. Xander remembered Caleb reappearing, only to be taken out of the fight when Xander fired a crossbow bolt into each of the semi-human preacher's eyes. The quintet of mystics began their incantation, which caused a group of uber-vamps to charge them. Angel screamed as a trio of Turak Han wrestled his son Connor down, while a fourth snapped his neck with a sound like a gunshot. Fred almost fainted when Oz and Gunn sat back up and tackled the vampire-things, and Willow gave a quiet sob as Kennedy sat up as well, yelling about how pissed she was to be dead while she tore the head off of the uber-vamp that had killed her. One final syllable, and the First screamed as her form shifted, twisted, and then stabilized into something resembling an H.R. Giger painting. Buffy and Faith attacked then, with Spike and a murderously vengeful Angel and Angelus striking in their wake. The fury of the battle dwarfed that of the war going on around them, so much so that living, dead, and demonic undead all paused to witness the elemental spectacle before them. The First fought with all the fury a creature suddenly in fear of mortal death. Faith's lifeless body fell to the ground with a sickening thud, her neck broken, and Buffy was thrown through a cinderblock wall. The First dislocated both of Angel's shoulders, grabbed Spike and twisted his head with a sick snap, then picked up Faith's knife, the one the Mayor had given her. It smiled, and then began rummaging through the rubble.  
  
"Ah. the Slayer. the last one. My Turak Han will kill your friends, then the Potentials, and then there will be no more Slayers. Ever. Then, I'll finish up what Glory started, and use your sister's life to rip the Hellmouth wide open."  
  
"The hell you will!" Buffy screamed then lurched forward, impaling herself on the knife's edge.  
  
Molly's eyes widened and she snapped forward as the power of the Slayer slammed into her. And she screamed in unison with Xander, Willow, Giles, and the two vampires who had both loved the blond Slayer. Willow rose into the air, power crackling around her, and with a swipe of her hand, tore then night sky open like cheap cloth, sunlight from across the other side of the globe streaming down into the horde of demons. The Turak Han howled as one, as they burst into flame and died, crumbling into burning ashes.  
  
"Spike!" Angel cried out, the pair just outside the deadly rays, "Do it! The Prophecy, Angelus just let me realize what it was! A Vampire with a soul, wielding the blood of a Slayer! It's why she wanted us on her side, because she knows we can kill her!"  
  
Spike grabbed the First Evil from behind, one arm around its neck, the other gripping the hand that held Faith's knife, slick with Buffy's blood.  
  
"NO! I killed you already! Your neck broke!"  
  
"Wot, this?" Spike grinned, full game-face on, as he popped his neck from side to side, "Just a little stiff, this is. You didn't twist far enough, bitch! Nothing like what this'll hurt like!" The blade arced down, slamming into groin, gut, and both of the creatures eyes, before arcing down into the First's heart, with a speed and precision that proved just why Spike, William the Bloody, was renowned for killing not one, but two Vampire Slayers before he met the one who'd claimed his heart.  
  
A shockwave slammed outward, knocking the living and the dead both off their feet, as the Sunnydale Hellmouth imploded, sealing itself for all eternity. The town, founded by the demonic Mayor, collapsed like dominoes as the mortar and concrete in every single building crumbled into sand and powdered limestone.  
  
The survivors gathered around where the peroxide blond vampire and the Key knelt crying over the body of the woman they loved. Buffy coughed with a raspy gurgle in Spike's arms. Crimson teardrops spattered down at her, as the vampire gently wiped away the bloody froth from her lips.  
  
"spike, dawnie, don't cry. Mom's right over there, and I'll be with her soon."  
  
"Save your strength, Luv, we'll get you fixed right as rain, don't you worry." Spike whispered to the dying Vampire Slayer.  
  
"william.no need.I'm going back. I'm going back." She smiled at Spike, then over his shoulder to her sister. "dawnie."  
  
"Yeah, Buffy?"  
  
"sorry I can't stay, to see you grow up.graduate.marry.but I'll always love you.little sis." Another fit of coughing wracked her petite form.  
  
"Buffy, don't." Spike softly whispered as he wiped her lips again.  
  
"spike.I need to tell you.you need to hear this.you deserve it." She peered up into his blue-gray eyes. "I lied.when I said I could never love you.lied to you.and to myself. I already did.the soul.was just icing on the cake."  
  
A sob caught in Spike's throat, "Buffy, luv, you don't have to."  
  
"yes.yes I do. I love you.both of you.the demon named spike."another cough, weaker this time, ".and william the bloody awful poet. You don't need me to. make you feel like a man.you already are." Her hand fell away, and the light faded from her eyes. A final soft breath sighed away into the night.  
  
Blue eyes shifted to burning gold as Spike pulled Buffy into his arms, and a howling scream of loss erupted from both Spike and Angel, and Dawn joined in as well, keening her grief to the night sky as she fell into Spike's embrace of the Slayer.  
  
Cordelia set Angel's shoulders back into place. Willow collapsed into Xander's arms. Anya teleported away, tears in the demon's eyes. Both Jenny and Joyce told Rupert Giles that they loved him, before they walked away to return to their graves, and the great reward that awaited their return. Fred was softly being consoled by Wesley, as the senior Watcher slowly pulled Spike and Dawn from Buffy's slowly cooling body.  
  
"Remember your promise, William?"  
  
"Wot.what promise, Watcher? What in the bloody hell are you talking about?"  
  
"Me." Dawn whispered, "Buffy made you promise to look after me in case anything happened to her, remember?"  
  
"That was from Glory, luv. The Hell-Bitch is dead, and so's the First, now."  
  
"But you still promised, Spike! You promised her and me both that you'd take care of me! You promised!" Dawn cried, clutching at his leather duster  
  
"And I always keep me promises, don't I, Nibblet." He sighed. "All right, I guess I won't watch the sun rise today. As much as I want to. Oh, I'm going to miss you, Buffy," he said brushing fingertips across her blood-flecked face, "But at least I know this time that you're going someplace good. Say Hi to Joyce for me.I didn't get the chance to, during the fight. And tell her I still miss the hot cocoa with the little marshmallows." He wiped the scarlet tears from his cheeks and stood.  
  
"Still a few hours till daylight. Watcher, Harris.It's time to put Buffy back into her grave. I could stand to use a little help."  
  
"Of course, Spike."  
  
"We all loved her, man. Give me a shovel. We pulled her out, and started this whole mess, it's only fitting we put her back to rest." Xander added in.  
  
The impromptu funeral lasted only a few hours, breaking up just minutes before daybreak. The only structure left in all of Sunnydale was a certain house on Revello drive. The next three days were spent with Giles and his new Slayer, Molly, and the rest of the Potentials packing and getting ready to leave the war-zone of a town, as rescue vehicles and National Guardsmen arrived, Sunnydale being declared a national disaster area.  
  
Angel and crew returned to Los Angeles that evening, leaving Willow and Xander to pack the remainder of their belongings into the truck, while Spike and Dawn loaded clothes and her things into Spike's black Desoto. The four were separately considering taking Angel up on his offer to come stay at the Hotel and join them in their fight to rid L.A. of demonic forces, but it was just too soon. The wounds were too raw.  
  
Are we in space? Do we belong? Someplace where no one calls us wrong And like the stars we burn away The Miles  
  
"Xander?" Willow asked as they settled into the seat of the truck, "I'm sorry about what I said."  
  
"Huh? What, Will?" Xander asked, turning to look at her as he was about to start the truck.  
  
"When I said that thing at the dinner table, back in December. With Kennedy and all."  
  
"Still losing me there, Wills, what'd you say, since I can't seem to remember?" The one-eyed ex-Scooby asked.  
  
"Remember when we were talking about kids who post fan-fic and poetry and stuff like that on the Internet? And Buffy asked if I'd posted any angst-y poems concerning you there?" She gave a sniffle.  
  
"Yeah, Wills, and I remember getting a little too cocky for my own britches there for a bit."  
  
"When I shot you down by saying that I was SO over you, and hello, gay now?"  
  
"Yeah, and I deserved it."  
  
"No you didn't, Xander. I was hiding, like I always do. Ever since Tara, I've been telling myself I was gay, a lesbian. But I loved Oz, too, Xander, and lesbians don't fall in love with men."  
  
"Which means.?"  
  
"Which means it's time I grew up and admitted to myself that I'm bisexual, not strictly a lesbian.and admitted something else, too."  
  
Xander and Willow turned to face each other across the wide seat of Xander's pick-up truck, eyes red with tears they'd shed for their friends.  
  
"The one person who I've always loved, even through Oz, through Tara, through my dating Kennedy and our mutual love for Buffy, was a certain Alexander Lavelle Harris. When Caleb hurt you, and you were there in the hospital, all I could think about was what would I do if I lost you?" Her voice caught at that last part.  
  
"Will." Xander swallowed. "Remember up on the Bluff, at the old temple?" Willow bowed her head in shame over the memory of what she'd done. "As I was climbing that hill, I remembered how it felt at my oh-so-not wedding, when you straightened my tie and looked at me and reminisced how you'd always thought that it'd be us two up there at that altar, promising vows to each other. And I knew..."  
  
"Knew what, Xan?" Willow asked in a shy, quiet voice that never failed to grab at his heart.  
  
"I knew then that as much as I loved Anya, she was right about one thing. The only person (other than me, of course,) who could tear us apart was. you. If you weren't with Tara, if you'd forced me to choose between her and you, you'd have won. I told Buffy one time, the only reason I never chased after you was because you were my friend. My Best Friend. If I'd lost that, if I'd lost you, I didn't know what I'd do. That was why I could honestly face you and say, 'Willow, I Love You'." Tears ran down the right side of Xander's face, and both sides of Willows, but these were cleansing tears, healing tears. For nearly an hour, they cried together, then straightened themselves, and Alexander Harris started the truck.  
  
How did we ever get this far? It shouldn't have to be this hard Now for the first time in my life I'm flying  
  
How did we ever go this far? You touch my hand and stop the car And for the first time in my life I'm crying  
  
Are we in love? Do we deserve To bear the shame of this whole world? And like the night we camouflage denial  
  
The End. 


End file.
